Lonesome Dove: Expectation vs. Reality

I just read that great American Western novel, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. While I don’t know that writing a review of such a novel is helpful (or even possible), I thought it might be fun to share my thoughts, especially relating to how it held up to my expectations. So, here we go!

Expectation: This book is long.

Reality: It’s even longer than I thought, AND it’s slow!

Seriously, this book clocks in at about 850 pages. And I’ve never read a slower book in my life. I set a pace of 50 pages a day for myself, and some days I was up late just trying to finish my 50 pages. The book is dense and the pace is slow. It takes them a good 150 pages just to get started on the cattle drive, and about 500 pages to get out of the state of Texas. I God! Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bored, it’s just LONG.

Review: Whiskey When We’re Dry

Whiskey When We’re Dry by John Larison

Genres: Western, Historical Fiction
Maturity Level: 4
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆

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In the spring of 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family’s homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her outlaw brother Noah and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess’s quest lands her in the employ of the territory’s violent, capricious Governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah–dead or alive. 

Wrestling with her brother’s outlaw identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right.

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Let me start off by saying that this was my first western, so this is by no means an especially knowledgeable or well-informed opinion.

I suppose it makes sense to start first with authenticity. Again, bearing in mind that my only context for this novel is Bugs Bunny cartoons, Whiskey When We’re Dry felt to me as authentic as they come. I felt like I was reading some classic like Lonesome Dove, or like I was living in the unsettled California frontier. The dialogue, the scenery, the whiskey, it all rang so true and clear. The Wild West didn’t feel Holleywood-ized, but as bleak and barren and desperate as it must actually have been.

Review: Gunslinger Girl

Gunslinger Girl by Lyndsay Ely

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction (?)
Maturity Level: 4
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆

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Seventeen-year-old Serendipity “Pity” Jones inherited two things from her mother: a pair of six shooters and perfect aim. She’s been offered a life of fame and fortune in Cessation, a glittering city where lawlessness is a way of life. But the price she pays for her freedom may be too great….

In this extraordinary debut from Lyndsay Ely, the West is once again wild after a Second Civil War fractures the U.S. into a broken, dangerous land. Pity’s struggle against the dark and twisted underbelly of a corrupt city will haunt you long after the final bullet is shot. 

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I’m sorry to say Gunslinger Girl did not live up to my expectations. It was a fun enough book, but it failed to deliver on being a high-octane Western adventure, and there wasn’t anything to make it stand out in the noise of YA adventure novels.